B.C.'s Latest Rhodes Scholar is From East Van

Living in Vancouver, it seems like there’s a constant debate about whether public schools on the west side are any better than those east of Main.

Well, East Van schools got some bragging rights today. Turns out that this year’s B.C. Rhodes Scholar is a graduate of Vancouver Technical Secondary School on the east side. Emma Preston, the winner pictured at left, is currently a fourth-year student at UBC.

Here’s an excerpt from today’s story:

East Van student earns Rhodes ScholarshipRecipient is in fourth year at UBC, studying microbiology and immunology Chad SkeltonVancouver Sun A 21-year-old University of B.C. student from east Vancouver has won a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University in England. Emma Preston, a fourth-year student of microbiology and immunology, was chosen for her outstanding grades but also for her community-service work, including pressuring her own university to improve access to drugs for the world’s poor. “Emma’s remarkable in terms of her combination of enthusiasm and intellect and really extraordinary community participation,” said Andrew Wilkinson, who helps thevancouversunister the scholarship in B.C. “She’s a real builder and a real go-getter and we’re delighted to have her as a Rhodes Scholar.” Each year, a single student in B.C. is selected as a Rhodes Scholar, one of 11 such prizes across the country and several dozen around the world. Many prominent people, such as former U.S. president Bill Clinton, are Rhodes Scholars. Preston said she is planning to use the prize — worth nearly $150,000 — to pursue a master’s degree in global health science at Oxford. Her main interest is how diseases such as HIV affect poor people, something she said she first became interested in early in life when she saw the problems in the Downtown Eastside.